Abstract: The Tranquillo is the second heatsink from Gelid Solutions, a Hong Kong based company born to a great extent from the ashes of the once mighty, now headphone hawking Arctic Cooling. Gelid has been continuing on in the silent cooling vein, with encouraging results.

The Tranquillo is the second heatsink from Gelid Solutions, a Hong Kong based company born to a great extent from the ashes of the once mighty, now headphone hawking Arctic Cooling. Gelid has been continuing on in the silent cooling vein,
with encouraging results.

Gelid's first thermal solution was the quiet but unremarkable Silent Spirit. The Tranquillo is a larger cooler by far, but employes the same unique dimpled aluminum fin technique and a rather unique fin geometry. When making heatsinks, the cheapest way for the factory to punch aluminum fins
from the roll is in the shape of rectangles. With an eye towards mitigating the different pressure drops behind a 1500RPM fan, Gelid opt for flattened chevron shaped fin. This creates a bigger void directly behind the fan motor and little plenum space where airflow is highest.

Forgive my overzealous use of
jargon and lingo... a plenum 0is simply a space for airflow (as in the void above an office drop-ceiling). A chevron is not a company, it's a triangular shape (think of a
flattened upside down 'V'). Large chevron's were famously welded into the
structure of this New York building
to keep it from toppling over in high
winds.

The Gelid Tranquillo heatsink stands
153mm tall and ships with a single 120mm PWM fan mounted. The
tower-style heatsink weighs 645 grams and
is compatible with Intel socket 775/1156/1366 and AMD socket 754/939/940/AM2+/AM3 processors.
While you might expect the Tranquillo to be an exposed base heatpipe heatsink,
it is not.
Instead the four copper heatpipes are grouped closely at
the base on a small copper heatspreader, and also grouped relatively
closely to one another where they pass through raw aluminum cooling fins.

The heatsinks' 1500-750RPM fan is held on with
a set of wire clips, a much better choice than rubber vibration
absorbing posts provided the manufacturer has balanced the fan blades. Gelid's Tranquillo heatsink retails for about $35CDN ($35USD) through all the usual
online e-tailers.

To ensure low thermal joint resistance between the base
and copper heatpipes the joints are well and fully soldered. In the photo below there
is very obviously a gap between the
copper and aluminum support structure (to the left, and right), but this isn't important.
The goal is for as much of the heat energy to be conducted by the four heatpipes
to the aluminum cooling fins above. Dumping heat into the tiny fins atop the base
really isn't that advantageous.

There
are a few unique aspects of the Gelid Tranquillo. For starters, the sides of
the heatsink are largely closed in, directing air flow through, rather than allowing it to
escape out the sides where resistance is low.

Although we can't say to what degree fin dimpling has on this heatsink's
performance, it certainly would seem to help brake up laminar airflow and
improve conduction from the aluminum into the passing air stream. The fin
texturing technique has been applied to several recent heatsink designs with
different levels of success.

Gelid's
Tranquillo heatsink is compatible with Intel socket 775/1156/1366 and AMD
socket 754/939/940/AM2+/AM3 processors. The CPU cooler is supplied with a variety
of brackets, separated into different packages. For each CPU socket small metal tabs
are attached to the heatsink base, a backplate positioned behind the motherboard, then
everything fixed in place with spring-tensioned screws or tool-free clip.

For Intel processors spring tensioned
screws are used. With AMD it's the tool free spring clip that attaches to the
lugs on the AMD heatsink retention frame.

A small
syringe of Gelid's house-brand thermal compound is also supplied.

FrostyTech's Test
Methodologies are outlined in detail
here if you care to know what equipment is used, and the parameters under
which the tests are conducted. Now let's move forward and take a closer look at
this heatsink, its acoustic characteristics, and of course its performance in
the thermal tests!